Health Inequality

At Food Revolution Network, our mission is healthy, ethical and sustainable food for all. As the US presidential election approaches, our President and CEO, John and Ocean Robbins, respectively, have joined together with other health and wellness leaders to take a prominent stand for policies that support our mission, and that contribute to healthy people and a healthy planet. Find out why these health leaders think this election is critical to the future of food and the health of the nation.

Millions of people in the US and around the world live in “food deserts”: areas where it’s hard or even impossible to find healthy food. These food deserts promote poor health outcomes, are a drag on our economy, and reinforce the worst effects of racism. How did food deserts come to be? What do they cost all of us? And what can we do to make healthy food available for all?

In this video interview, New Jersey Senator, Cory Booker, sits down with John Robbins for a look at the powerful impact our food choices and food policies have on our health and world. Senator Booker gives his candid take on how our food system got so broken and what we can do as individuals, and as a society, to work toward an end to factory farms, food deserts, climate change, hunger, and extreme poverty. Despite the enormity of the problems we’re all faced with today, this interview will fill you with hope and empower you to take action for a healthier, more equitable, and more compassionate world.

Ocean Robbins sits down with Leah Penniman, food justice activist and the co-founder and co-director of Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, NY. Hear Leah’s take on racism in the US food and agricultural system, what’s being done about it, and how you can take action to build a healthier and more sustainable world for everyone.

COVID-19 doesn’t affect everyone equally. The main risk factors discussed by scientists have been age and pre-existing chronic disease. But the coronavirus has been especially lethal to people of color in the United States. What are the causes of this inequality, and are there things we can do about it?

Recent events have been heartbreaking, and they have exposed more widely, how pervasive and painful racism is in our world. Our hearts go out to everyone who’s hurting, to everyone who’s frightened, and particularly to the communities of color that are bearing the terrible brunt of systemic racism, as they have been for centuries.

Categorized as essential workers, farmworkers continue to help provide the nation with food. But their lack of basic protections puts them uniquely at risk for exposure to COVID-19, threatening their livelihoods, their families, and those of us that rely on them to get food from fields to plates.

Once a self-reliant agriculture-dependent economy, Puerto Rico now imports the majority of its food (including, unfortunately, fast food). But some residents in a rural Puerto Rican community are reviving a historic botanical garden to serve as an example of and inspiration for bringing back local and sustainable farming — and for the purposes of cultural and historical preservation.

Since 2009, enrollees in the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) have been allowed to purchase fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Has the program worked? According to a new study, it has! And the results shed light on how we can uplift the health of children and reverse the onslaught of childhood obesity.

Pesticides on food are being monitored — but see why some pesticide risks are being missed.

All people, including prisoners, deserve healthy, delicious, sustainable food.

See Food Revolution Summit speaker David Katz, MD, discuss the problems with the "health care" system in the U.S. and how we can fix the problem. And how you can live long and prosper with vitality.